Ghosts and Baggage
by fanfictional
Summary: So, originally this was a one shot about Ziva, but I've decided to make it a series of unrelated one shots with the team. After the first chapter each story comes with its own summary, pairing, and rating. Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS or any of its characters


Why is it that one day can be completely blissful and the next a torturous continuity of hopelessness? She had always seen these days differently but the same. The blissful day lulled her into a false sense of security, while the torturous days mocked her foolish ability to be content with anything less than a slow painful death, and yet both were reminders of what she would always live with. Ziva saw more bad days than good, but she showed neither to the people around her. She couldn't ask them to worry for her. She deserved no one's love, and she knew it. So did they.

"Sister, why do you try to ignore me?" Ari mocked from his seat on the edge of Ziva's desk. She had been actively focusing on anything but her brother for the longest time and was still not even half done with the report she was typing. "You cannot act as if I am not present forever, you know, and the others will be here shortly. They always come."

They did. They always came, together and apart, but they were always there. When she fought them, they were there. When she couldn't see them, they were there. She knew that to be true, because they mentioned things that had happened in their absences. She looked around the bull pen and noticed that no one was there with her except her brother. "Go away." she ordered almost pleadingly.

Ari smiled his monstrous smirk and looked down on her. His eyes were dead, but he spoke as clearly as anyone else. "Why would I give you peace, dear Ziva? You killed me, did you not?" he asked as if he wasn't already aware of the answer. Ziva chose to look back at her report rather than argue with one of her ghosts.

Tony and Tim stepped out of the elevator, and Ziva was almost able to genuinely smile at the sight of their brotherly banter. "If you don't shut up about Sandra Bullock's hair in _Speed_, I'm going to shoot you!" McGee yelled with a bag from Beltway Burger in one hand.

Tony laughed off the empty threat and went back to his work of annoying anyone and everyone with his vast knowledge of all things cinema. "All I'm saying is she looks better with long hair. The short just didn't work. She was hot and all, but her hair in _Miss Congeniality _or in _Two Weeks' Notice_ was so much better." Tony defended.

"You are using two chick flicks for evidence in your argument?" McGee asked with an amused smile playing on his lips. Ziva laughed a bit at the offended expression on Tony's face. There was no need for a comeback, because Gibbs walked past the two and placed a slap to each of their heads as he did so.

"Thank you, Boss." Tony winced and got back to work as quickly as possible. He tossed a wrapped sandwich across the bull pen where Ziva caught it effortlessly and went back to her work. "Not hungry, Zee-vah?" Tony questioned when he noticed that she had opted for work over eating.

Ziva glanced at the sandwich sitting next to her bother. "No, I am not." Ari seemed to be enjoying the effect he was having on Ziva, and he looked between her and Tony. Ziva attempted typing for a few minutes longer before giving up and shutting down her computer. Tony was going to ask her about why she was leaving so early but thought better of it in the hope that she might actually sleep, although the shadows beneath her eyes seemed to indicate that she hadn't been nor would she be sleeping for some time.

The elevator doors slid together, trapping Ziva with only her thoughts and her ghostly visitor. "Do you think you will be sleeping tonight?" Ari wondered from a corner of the metal box. He watched her with a cold calculating gaze and waited to see if she would try to lie to her own ghost.

Ziva shook her head and looked to the ceiling so as to avoid looking at her brother. "I suppose they will all be there waiting for me." She wondered when this had happened. There was a time when she was given an assignment, carried out the orders, and slept without nightmares or ghosts infiltrating her life. That had changed. Since coming to NCIS she had allowed herself to feel the guilt and sadness she had accumulated throughout her previous and current careers.

The doors opened, and Ari accompanied Ziva to her car. The drive was neither long nor short, neither eventful nor uneventful. She removed the key from the ignition and mentally prepared herself for the night ahead. Ari again followed Ziva up the steps. He smiled to her neighbor at the same time Ziva dredged up a false smile from within for the elderly woman. He walked into her apartment with her and welcomed the others who joined them as often as not.

"Hello, Ziva." a sixteen year old Tali greeted her sister. Ziva stared the ghost of her sister who looked as beautiful and vibrant as she had so many years ago. It was hard to keep the grief from over whelming her at the sight of her baby sister standing before her as if she were alive and well. Tali went to stand beside Ari after her greeting, and the two had a silent conversation.

It was almost comical in a morbid sort of way that Ziva couldn't decipher what they were discussing even though they were part of her. She couldn't form words. Tali and Ari came to her so often, but it always started with them mocking her silently while she tried in vain to say anything to either of the patiently waiting siblings she had abandoned to the grim reaper.

Tali's chocolate eyes watched her with intrigue and accusation. Ziva couldn't help but wish she had been the one to die in the suicide bombing instead of her sister. Some would call it survivor's guilt or grief over the loss of a loved one, but Ziva knew it was neither. She should have died, because out of the three siblings Tali was the one who most deserved the life taken from her. "You could have saved me." Tali mused with a hint of anger behind the words.

Ziva had fought the internal battle of whether or not she could have saved her sister for years. She should have known. Everyone had told her that she couldn't have known and that she wouldn't have been able to do anything about it if she had. She knew it, but she didn't believe it. "I am sorry, Tali." Ziva apologized again to her sister.

"You are not sorry for my death?" Ari asked with amusement coating his words. A tear slithered down Ziva's cheek, but that was the only indication she gave to hearing the question. Ari smiled at her again, and she hated that he knew the answer to his question. "You are sorry. Tell me, sister, what was it like to shoot your last living sibling? Tali had already died, so did that make it easier to murder your own brother?"

"No! I did not want to, but you left me no choice!" Ziva's words sounded less sure than she had hoped. Her voice was shaking, and to any outsider she would have looked insane. Perhaps she was. A chuckle from the other side of the room caught her attention. She knew that sound, and it had haunted her long after she had left for Israel. "Michael." she stated to no one in particular.

Michael had been leaning against her counter with an alcoholic drink of some sort in his hand but stood up straighter at being addressed indirectly. "I see you are still friends with my murderer. Tell me, Ziva, do you enjoy being around death? It seems to follow you wherever you go. You killed your brother, your partner killed me, and your entire team has killed many people- innocent and guilty alike." Michael's observations filtered through the room and hung in the air.

"I have never killed without reason, and my team has only killed when absolutely necessary." Ziva didn't hesitate to defend her family, although her defense of herself was less forceful. She met her dead lover's stare without wavering, but he knew as well as she that she wished they would all disappear and let her suffer alone. "And I thought misery loved company." His snarky remark was answered with amused laughter from Ari, Tali, and a new spirit.

Ziva's blood ran cold at the sound of the familiarly evil laugh. She stared into Saleem's daunting eyes and saw the same hatred she always saw in him. "You should be with us in this ghostly world. Your friends saved you, but they could not save your soul from the damage that had already been inflicted. I own a piece of you, Ziva David, and you can never get it back. You know very well that each of us holds a piece of you. How long will it be before ghosts have more of you than you have of yourself?" he taunted

He was right. Ziva had lost a piece of her soul with certain other deaths. Tali had been the first to take a piece of Ziva's soul to her grave, then Ari, then Jenny, then Michael, then Saleem. Soon it seemed more likely that she would die by loss of soul than by a bullet taking the light from her eyes. She searched the apartment for the missing holder of her soul. Where was Jennifer Shepard?

There she was, sitting on the couch observing the others around her. In a way Jenny was Ziva's friend and enemy on these nights. She never accused Ziva or blamed her for the death she had faced down. Jenny had chosen to die in that diner and had made sure Ziva couldn't help her, but Ziva blamed herself as much as Tony. She was better at hiding it, but the guilt was always there. These five ghosts were the reason she never slept anymore. She had allowed her heart to feel all of the pain she had been blocking since her first kill, and they wanted her to feel it all at once. "Why am I here?" Jenny asked as she walked towards the distressed Israeli.

Ziva had often wondered the same thing. She knew she couldn't have done anything for Jenny, but they were close. She had saved Jenny's life once before in Cairo, and that left a bond between the two that lasted a lifetime. Ziva's phone rang, and the ghosts watched her with interest as she accepted the call. "David." she announced into the speaker.

"Hey there, Zee-vah. I was thinking you, me, pizza, and movies?" Tony asked his partner hopefully. He was blissfully unaware of the demons haunting her on this night and so many others.

She almost agreed to a movie night but couldn't risk exposing Tony to the taint that was her current disposition. "I am very tired tonight, but perhaps another time." Ziva suggested as if either of them believed she would initiate the rescheduling.

"Of course. I think I have the perfect one picked out. You have to see _Friends_! It's a TV show, not a movie, but I think you'll like it anyway." Tony's voice was strangely comforting with his rambling carelessness.

They both knew Tony was trying to keep the conversation going for Ziva's benefit, and she appreciated it, but it wouldn't work. "I will see you tomorrow. Good night, Tony." He answered with a halfhearted good bye, and Ziva was left with five demonic ghosts waiting to plague her sleepless night.

She went to her bed room, changed into her pajamas, and laid down in her bed. Tali sat beside her, Ari leaned against the door as a guard might watch his prisoner, Jenny sat on the chair against the wall, Saleem hovered over her, and Michael drank his never ending drink and leaned against the wall. These dead enemies and friends were her judge, jury, and executioner. She would fall into a restless sleep and be awakened by one or more of them haunting her unconscious mind. Then she would give up on sleep after only an hour or two of tossing and turning. She would wake up, go on her run, go to work, come home, and the cycle would continue with her accompanying baggage. Ziva David had decided a long time ago that she didn't deserve peace, and it seemed the universe was finally in agreement with her.


End file.
